Murray Soupcoff
When will the “caring” activists of the left ever learn? Never have so few individuals with so many good intentions created so much miseryfor so many people whom they wanted to help. As the social-engineering debacles of the last half century in the United States have demonstrated, carelessness in “caring” for thedisadvantaged in our society only leads to a glaringly uncaring result.
After all, it was pioneering liberal-left social engineers in the 1940’s and 50’s who came up with the not-so-creative idea of fighting poverty in American slums by ripping down existing for-profitrental housing and replacing the existing rental stock with the cold, massive, impersonal concrete human stockyards we now know as public housing projects — the equivalent of urban hell for severalgenerations of the poor in North America. Not only was poverty not checked by this urban “reform,” but the absence of cheap rooming houses and other lodgings for society’s marginalizedcitizens ultimately created the phenomenon of urban homelessness. And of course, we all know the many wonderful benefits that came with living in comfy, government-subsidized “projects” –rampant drug addiction, vandalism, family breakup, gang wars, killings and social decay.
Oh, and did we mention an even more ingrained “cycle of poverty”?
Does corporate welfare count as “welfare”? For all the “opportunism” that exists by those living in low-income housing, I’m not sure it can compare to the bigwigs in corporate America:
Some interesting facts that won’t be spoken of by the Heritage Foundation:
This is a list of the 8 corporate welfare recipients that were listed in the first article of the Inquirer series, comparing corporate welfare received to the number of people layed off in that time (1990-1994).
Welfare recieved(sic) Employment (- equals negative)
GM $110,600,000 -104,000
IBM 58,000,000 -100,000
AT&T 35,000,000 -1,077 * #
GE 25,400,000 -80,000
Amoco 23,600,000 -8,300 *
DuPont 15,200,000 -29,961
Motorola 15,100,000 +9,600 *
Citicorp 9,600,000 -15,700
— If corporate welfare serves the purpose of keeping people employed, it seems to be failing on that count.
According to a US Senate hearing, $13 billion the Pentagon handed out to weapons contractors between 1985 and 1995 was simply “lost.” Another $15 billion remains unaccounted for because of “financial management troubles.” That’s $2B billion-right off the top-that has simply disappeared…
Career criminals
… According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, every single one of the top ten weapons contractors was convicted of or admitted to defrauding the government between 1980 and 1992. For example:
* Grumman paid the government $20 million to escape criminal liability for coercing subcontractors into making political contributions.
* Lockheed was convicted of paying millions in bribes to obtain classified planning documents.
* Northrop was fined $17 million for falsifying test data on its cruise missiles and fighter jets.
* Rockwell was fined $5.5 million for committing criminal fraud against the Air Force.
No contradiction
There is no contradiction between opposing multi-generational, welfare dependency AND opposing government waste or corruption. Again, as to welfare dependency see the Moynihan report. He predicted it all.
Note #1 : If corporate welfare serves the purpose of keeping people employed, it seems to be failing on that count.
One would have to look at the rates of change in employment, and the actual effects of what you call ‘corporate welfare’ rather than just the raw data. It could just as easily be that the rates would far worse (i.e. the 1st and 2nd derivatives of employment WRT time would be more negative) if corporations (that create jobs) did not receive ‘welfare’.
Poor people do not create jobs, the ‘evil rich’ do. When was the last time anyone earned a wage from someone on welfare ?
Note 1. Articles on government waste and corporate welfare found on the Heritage.org site:
Government Waste (includes waste to corporations).
Derailing the Fortune 500 Gravy Train.
Congress Should Follow the President and Eliminate the Advanced Technology Program (35% of spending to Fortune 500 companies).
More Corporate Welfare Embedded in the Farm Bill.
etc. etc.
Following Missourian’s point: Critiquing corporate welfare and the welfare state are not mutually exclusive.
Note 3: Let me see if I’m getting this correct: A company has no business savvy or ethics so the government bails them out. This is okay. An individual has no business sense or ethics and the government bails them out and this is NOT okay.
Makes sense to me.
Note 4: I stand corrected. However, I fail to see how corporate welfare doesn’t fall under the blanket of “liberalism”. Perhaps it’s because the recipients are wealthy, I don’t know.
Isolate the Relevant Variable: Race
A reasonable way to test the existence of systematic racism in America is to look at comparable economic groups. For instance, compare the incomes of African-Americans who are married and have at least one college graduate in the family with Whites who are married and have at least one college graduate in the family. I think that John McWhorter in his book Losing the Race discusses this. You will find little or nor distinction between similarly situated blacks and whites.
The aggregate difference is blacks and whites is nearly completely accounted for by incarceration rates and drop out rates. Blacks who get married and complete with high school or college do just as well as whites who get married and complete high school or college.
Arguing against the existence of severe pandemic racism, is the fact that whites who are incarcerated or who drop out of high school or who do not marry DO AS POORLY as blacks who are incarcerated or who drop out of high school or who do not marry.
See also Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb by John Ogbu. Obgu is a Nigerian anthropologist who provided a very scholarly study which is still accessible to the average reader.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/080584516X/104-9875136-8323163?v=glance
JamesK, Quid Pro Quo
I am fully willing to agree that big money interests have the power to exert corrupt political influence: immigration is a classic example. Big business supports illegal immigration which subverts protective labor legislation, breaks up unions and pushes down wages for the low-skilled. Are you willing to recognize that the perpetuation of a black helplessness and poverty serves the interests of certain very identifiable sectors of the economy?
When Congress votes to expand either an entitlement program or a social welfare program, the first thing it does is CREATE FEDERAL OR STATE GOVERNMENT JOBS. Federal workers have unions and they have very large political war chests. It is only afer government jobs are created and government agencies created that “the poor” get any benefit and then it is NOT a job.
Are you willing to admit that some people JUST MIGHT benefit PERSONALLY from heavy social welfare spending? Just a tad? Just a teensy, weensy bit?
Missourian writes: “When Congress votes to expand either an entitlement program or a social welfare program, the first thing it does is CREATE FEDERAL OR STATE GOVERNMENT JOBS. Federal workers have unions and they have very large political war chests. It is only afer government jobs are created and government agencies created that ‘the poor’ get any benefit and then it is NOT a job.”
Well . . . how would you do it? I mean, if private business wants to start a new line of business they hire employees to manage that don’t they?
Are you suggesting that if the feds start a program such as Medicare that they shouldn’t hire any extra people to administer it?
By the way, as I’ve pointed out many times before, most of the money from social programs doesn’t go to the employable poor, but to the sick, dying, eldery, disabled, and children. This is a very simple and fundamental fact that many conservatives on this list seem incapable of assimilating.
Note 10, Jim, compare WI and MN
Jim, I was merely asking you whether you are willing to acknowledge that there exist million-member public employee unions which have huge campaign warchests who have a monetary interest in maintaining certain programs?
Prior to the reforms of the federal welfare system in the 1990’s a good deal of money went to able bodied adults. A discussion of the differing approaches taken by Wisconsin and Minnesota can be found here:
http://www.claremont.org/writings/991217hinderaker_johnson.html. Wisconsin imposed a work requirement, Minnesota did not. Minnesota ATTRACTED welfare recipients from other states, showing that people WILL respond to differing levels of welfare benefits and actually travel across country to obtain them.
Note 11 Support taxation for schools, training
I have always noted that I support taxation for schools and job training. I support a modest minimum wage, but not a “living wage.” I would like to see people working at the highest level they can manage, while those with the physical and mental ability train for higher level work. I am very happy to pay substantial taxes for these activities.
I support programs that get people INTO JOBS and off welfare. I doesn’t mean that I oppose helping people in acute crisis situations, however, we have to have a long term strategy to get people into jobs.
IMPACT OF THE CULTURE?
Across the board, Americans have abandoned the idea that having a child out-of-wedlock is something of which a person should be ashamed. People who express disapproval are labeled “judgmental.”
More and more American culture, acepts and normalizes the lives of criminal parasites, such as the characters that rap artists sing about.
More and more American culture glamorizes and idolizes people who have obtained wealth for virtually no effort, celebrities, actors and singers. Children can easily believe that someone who works at a modest job for a modest wage is a chump.
Please take a look at Charlotte Phelps writings. She has worked in social welfare for years
http://www.gerrycharlottephelps.com/2005/09/chapter_4_what_.html
Jim, Culture of Poverty
For the record, I have done volunteer work in battered women’s shelters and also worked for a state department of social services. I have some first hand experience working with people who are in crisis and mired in poverty. Culture matters. Please look at this excerpt from Chalotte Phelps. She describes peopel she tried to help at a shelter. She has 18 years experience working with the poor.
Given what Ms. Phelps has to say, do you think that Snoop Doggy Dog is really helping young black men make a life for themselves? When a culture rewards an “artist” who glamorizes and normalizes living off the earnings of prostitutes, it will promote poverty. Snoops’ child goes to an exclusive private school by the way. Chew on that irony.
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One instructive detail was that there were certain groups of people that we never saw among the homeless. Among these were any Asians, Mormons or Seventh-Day Adventists. And only one Jew. These groups not only have a strong work-ethic, but they also stick together and help each other.
Notably, for the women, being homeless had a lot to do with the kind of man in their lives. We never saw a homeless mom whose man was willing to work, except very briefly. We also never saw a homeless mom whose man was not only willing to work, but also did none of these: drink, use drugs, abuse her or the children, run around with other women or commit crimes. Most of them, sadly, had one or more of these problems. In fact, a homeless woman might count herself lucky if he did only some of these things, but not others.
These were the homeless. But we had very similar experiences later, in another charity, with men and women who were not so poor as to be homeless, but were still very poor. The characteristics were very similar.
Most of the women began to have sex at an early age. Despite some abortions, most had 2 or 3 children by age 18. Most were never married. Most of their children had different fathers. Their fathers usually did not work.
Whatever they told us, there was almost always a man in the house, usually a boyfriend. Usually he did not contribute financially to the household. If fact, he was usually a financial parasite, living off the mother and often other welfare girlfriends as well.
We would try hard to involve the boyfriend in the program. This was not only because he needed it. It was also because our experience showed that sooner or later, he would try to sabotage her program, when he realized that once she was earning her money instead of just getting a check from welfare, his parasitic position in her life might be at risk.
Typically, he would insist on baby-sitting her children when she got a job. (He would not want her to spend “their” money on someone else.) Then he would do such a bad job, or be so unreliable, that she would have to quit her new job. So things went back to the way they were and he could stop worrying. We saw it over and over and over.
His attitude about working was that it was beneath him. That jobs that he could get were too undignified. He scorned friends who worked at entry-level jobs for “chump change.” He usually lacked the concept of starting in a low-level job and working his way up.
Chances were small that he was working.
Chances were large that he had a criminal record of some kind, as the only kinds of work he found acceptable were, for the most part, illegal. He dreamed of making a big killing or winning the lottery.
Usually he had dropped out of school early. Often he would be illiterate or semi-literate. Fatherless himself as a rule, he had no clue as to what being a good father was like. Often, he had been part of a gang, and had been delinquent since an early age. He usually had several children by several women. He may have been an outright pimp at some point. He also may have been in several programs, learning mostly how to fake his way through them. He typically was abusive of his women and sometimes their children.
These men shape much of the social life of their communities. They help create the standards and tone of what is “cool.” They know how to be noticed in the party and night-life scene. They are imitated by the youth of their communities.
Steven Mananga’s The New New Left, subtitled “How American Politics Works Today,” is relevant to the discussion. I’d recommend it highly.
Jim, any comments on culture of poverty?
The politicians who oppose school vouchers send their children to exclusive private schools. What is good enough for poor blacks is not good enough for them.
It seems that asking for a certain standard of behavior in return for a hand-out is somehow a radioactive issue. This can only be so if those in authority feel as though they atoning for something.
Note 16 quote: It seems that asking for a certain standard of behavior in return for a hand-out is somehow a radioactive issue. This can only be so if those in authority feel as though they atoning for something.
It is in the financial and political best interests of a lot of people to make “those in authority” feel that way at every turn. Calling them “mean spirited” if they get out of line is just the beginning.
Missourian asks: “Jim, any comments on culture of poverty?”
My first concern has been to move the discussion from “liberal social programs are disasters” to something that acknowledges the facts of the actual situation. Chief among these facts is that most of the money spent on these social programs goes to medical, psychiatric, group home, nursing home, and other similar kinds of care for sick, disabled, and elderly people. These programs have not been disasters.
My second concern has been to note that there is waste and inefficiency in *all* large-scale programs, whether social, educational, military, construction, or whatever. In addition, all such programs are in need of periodic reforms, and the need for such reform is not a sign that the program in question is a failure.
My third concern has been to point out that the causes of poverty are complex, and defy any easy generalization or solution.
I personally do not have a solution for multigenerational black poverty. As far as I know, no one else does either. Many black people were in dire poverty long before social programs showed up in force. While it is true that the nature of poverty has changed in recent decades, it is overly-simplistic to lay that change at the feet of “liberal” welfare programs.
Part of what has happened is that in recent decades the skills required to thrive in the economy have drastically changed. When our parents entered the work force in the 20s or 30s, a high school education was all that was needed for a successful life. Now, a college degree is a requirement even for many entry-level jobs. In some cases a graduate degree is necessary even to get a foot in the door in some professions.
In addition to education there are a large number of soft skills that people have to master in order to move up the economic ladder. Things such as how to interview, teamwork, how to make contacts, how to do meetings, and so on, are skills that have to be learned. Many people don’t understand the mechanics of how to have a long-term career, and even the slightest misfortune can plunge even good people into poverty, as books such as _Falling from Grace_ have documented.
The road to higher education begins in grade school and continues on through high school. That twelve years is the time when the student learns the skills and study habits and interests that largely determine whether the student even thinks that college might be a possibility.
If the student comes from a family in which no one has even been to college, developing that vision for oneself can be difficult.
Another problem is that a lof of the family-wage jobs once held by less-educated people have disappeared. Here in Oregon thousands of timber-related jobs have gone. Large manufacturing plants have closed. People who once made $40 or $50 thousand a year and had houses, cars, and boats, found themselves economically adrift once the local plant or sawmill closed.
Even the transitional jobs have deteriorated. In the late 70s I worked my way through a private university education at $8 an hour as a blast freezer operator at a local cannery. In today’s money that would have been about $20 an hour. Today that cannery is closed, as are most all the other canneries where I grew up. Twenty-five years later college students work for $8 an hour at Blockbuster Video, and they’re taking out tens of thousands of dollars in loans in order to fund their education.
Over the last few decades private employment in the U.S. has become largely de-unionized. Today employers can prevent unionization and get barely a slap on the wrist, if even that.
Contracting-out has taken another on family wage jobs. Telecom workers in the 80s woke up one day to find that their jobs had been contracted out to other companies. So they went to work on Friday at $14 an hour, and next Monday came to work at $11 an hour, doing the same jobs they had done before, with the phone company and the contractor splitting the difference.
On top of all that, we now have the “winner take all” society, in which people at the top become fabulously wealthy while people at the bottom stagnate. Fifty years ago a janitor could save money and buy a house; today that would be an impossibility for many.
The list of seismic changes in the economy goes on and on. These changes have made it more difficult for all of us, but for people at the bottom these changes have been devastating. Even people who want to climb up the ladder find that the ladder is becoming increasingly difficult to ascend, and many of the old rungs are now missing.
So I don’t have a solution for multigenerational black poverty. There may indeed be a culture of poverty, but it’s important to understand the economic context in which that culture has developed.
Jim, Understood
Jim, your comments are on point and I agree that you have raised some very important matters. Everything you mentioned needs to be taken into account in order to formulate effective poverty policy. Nobody suggests that the disabled and the elderly should be abandoned. The debate centers on young people and the able-bodied. The Wisconsin/Minnesota comparsion addressed those who were physically and mentally able to do some kind of work.
Black and white household which have comparable marital status and educational levels have the same income levels. Black households which contain a married couple and at least one adult with a high school education or higher have the same income as comparable white households which are similarly situated. Reduce the 66% black illegitimacy rate and a great deal of black poverty could be avoided.
I agree that we are facing an increasing challenge as globalization and technological advances eliminate low-skilled jobs. However, there is something that we can do today, it is practical not mere moralizing or clucking over “these kids today.” We need a national campaign to re-establish the primacy of married parenthood. It is a great deal harder to train a young person who is also a parent.
You do have to agree that it has been the cultural Left or the Marxist left which has most gleefully worked to trampel all Judaeo-Christian sexual morality. I actually lived in an America where the entire population ( from the highest level to the lowest) that pre-marital sex was immoral and harmful and that illegitimacy was shameful. Those ideas have been nearly swept away. It was not the conservatives who worked for the destruction of standard of sexual responsibility.
Jim, What about illegtimacy?
Do you agree that a shift from 10% ilegtimacy rate to 66% illegimatimacy rate for a large population such as the 10 to 12 million blacks in America is a significant factor? Don’t you agree that it is much more difficult for a young man or woman to manage a transition into financial independence with the responsibility of an infant weighing them down (as precious as that infant may be)?
You still have not addressed the biggest and most obvious cultural component and its source. Casual sexuality is a DISASTER for the poor.
Do you think that the 60’s generation promotion of pre-marital sex had nothing to do with that? Do you think that the cultural Left’s constant assault on all of the previous moral guidelines governing sexual conduct had nothing to with it? Don’t you think the mainstreaming of illegtimacy has hurt Black America?
This is why so many say it is the LIBERAL influence which has been so deadly.
Add to that the “entitlement” and “eternal victim” mentality promoted by Jesse Jackson and Sharpton and you have a great recipe for failure.
Missourian writes: “Nobody suggests that the disabled and the elderly should be abandoned.”
I would hope not. But I have to tell you that I’ve had some conversations — not necessarily in this venue — that are scary. I haven’t heard anyone recommending abandoning the disabled and elderly. But sometimes people become trapped in their own rhetoric. If someone believes that taxation is theft, that government spending on social programs is wrong, that all income redistribution to individuals is wrong, that the free market and private charity should take care of everything, and that individuals should be responsilble for themselves — I think it’s legitimate to be concerned about where that thinking, taken to its logical end, would lead.
Even when we’re spending money on the elderly and disabled we have to be smart about it. ALL public programs need to be accountable and be driven by good business practices. This is what public performance audits are all about. We should never throw money at a problem or allow public agencies to violate sound contracting and purchasing principles. Of course, the public sector doesn’t have the market cornered on inefficiency and waste. Many times private businesses are just as bad, or worse. But public agencies need to be held to a higher standard. Unfortunately, in many cases that doesn’t happen.
You see, I think the conservatives really do have a legitimate beef, but they express it the wrong way. So many conservatives are just repeating the same mantra — cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes. But that’s not the solution. Instead they should be insisting on effective programs that are well-run, that have continuous improvement programs in place, that can demonstrate progress through metrics, that actively work to promote a culture of faster, better, and cheaper, and that reward the people who can do that. Having public agencies that are efficient and effective shouldn’t be either a liberal or a conservative issue; we should all insist on that. Having a well-run public agency isn’t rocket science, but it is science. It’s hard work, as Bush is fond of saying, but it is doable.
But the problem is that you can’t work to make a program efficient and effective if you don’t believe in the program in the first place. In other words, if someone thinks that all welfare is wrong, how is he going to work to improve welfare programs? He can’t. You have to believe in the program in the first place in order to work to improve it. This is why I think a lot of people are unqualified for public service. Not because they’re conservative, but because they don’t have a passion for the agencies they’re supposed to run. Having a passion means working to make the agency better and being an advocate for the agency; it doesn’t mean just sitting in the big office and being a caretaker and presiding over budget cuts. How can a person be a good manager if he doesn’t give a shit about what he’s supposed to manage? He can’t. All these political appointees who are heads of federal agencies should be taken out and shot, Democrat or Republican, and replaced by people who have actual experience, qualifications, and a proven record of management excellence.
My solution is JOBS, your solution is PROGRAMS
Jim writes people are unqualified for public office
…. because they don’t have a passion for the agencies they’re supposed to run. Having a passion means working to make the agency better and being an advocate for the agency;
*********************
No one should be an “advocate for the agency.” One should be an advocate for self-sufficiency of American citizens. A “successful” anti-poverty agency would PUT ITSELF OUT OF BUSINESS.
Your language reveals your worldview. Your allegiance is to the AGENCY, the PROGRAM. My allegiance is to the goal of self-sufficiency and the end for the NEED FOR THE AGENCY or THE PROGRAM.
Over and over and over again, agencies have proved themselves INCAPABLE of efficiency, because there is no competition, no other person that can provide better services and therefore prompt the agency to improve its performance. The agency CAN’T improve its performanc BECAUSE that would put it out of business and end all the government jobs. That cannot happen, and believe me, it won’t happen.
Over time agencies only GROW, only ask for more money, only add MORE jobs, only find more “problems” that need help. The agency mentality is one of PERMANENT WARDSHIP of the populace. Social workers who know better will MANAGE the poor PROPERLY. I don’t want the POOR managed, I want people to become self-sufficient.
Missourian, how is someone that spends half the day vomiting or fatigued from chemotherapy or radiation treatment supposed to be “productive”, exactly? What sort of “jobs” would you recommend for a quadriplegic? Or someone who is blind and deaf? Telemarketer? Sanitation engineer?
“250,000 Americans are spinal cord injured. 52% of spinal cord injured individuals are considered paraplegic and 47% quadriplegic.”
The statistics for cancer are in the stratosphere.
Yet, this considerable population doesn’t really seem to exist to conservatives. Many were lucky to have had insurance provided by their companies when their diseases were diagnosed. Many were not. Many companies do NOT offer full medical insurance or disability to lower-wage workers.
What percentage of people on public assistance (including medical) are really abusing the system? It’s not zero, but it’s not as high as you seem to think it is.
The right seems to forget that there are a vast number of people who cannot be “self-sufficient” in any circumstance. We have already agreed that we have a common goal in ensuring that those who CAN be productive are encouraged to do so through the enforcement of stricter eligibility criteria and controls. I’m not sure where the problem is here.
Before Government there was the Family, the Church and the Community:
Today, we Americans control more wealth and have higher incomes than any preceding generation, YET, we cannot conceive of sidetraking our relentless search for gratification long enough to care for our own families needy, sick and elderly.
You are obviously outraged at the thought that an individual or a family could be expected to care for themselves or their sick, elderly or disabled. Well that was how it was for centuries. Now government has taken over the role of family, it claims more and more of our honestly earned money, it controls more of our lives, and it will direct more and more life and death decisions. First, it was “right to die,” next is it will be “duty to die.” because it will be more efficient for the government who is our UBER PARENT and whom we have a right to EXPECT to care for us, will want.
In the 19th century, there was no big government to provide social services. At that time, the entire American population agreed on the following:
a) people should remain chaste before marriage and monogamous after
b) family ties and family responsibilities were PARAMOUNT
c) marriage was for life, being a good partner and good parent was someone’s first duty in life
d) marriage provided companionship needs BUT it also provided a framework for the raising of children
the care of the elderly and the sick.
e) a nuclear family and the extended family CONSIDERED IT ITS SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS DUTY to care for
its own needy
f) people who did not have families to care for them were assisted by the church or the local community.
This was a very, very small number of people.
g) people expected to save money during good times to pay for expenses during bad times
h) most charity was administered by people who knew the needy personally AND who would NOT LOSE A JOB if the needy achieved
self-sufficiency
In the 20th and 21st centuries, we have big government which provides extensive social services. Today the American population agrees:
a) unwed motherhood is common and acceptable
b) an individual’s need for personal fullfillment is more important than family responsibilities
c) marriage is optional and certainly not for life
d) no one is expected to accept the restrictions involved in caring for the sick and elderly in
their own family, individual freedom comes first
d) the government has a DUTY to provide for the sick and the citizen has a RIGHT TO EXPECT THAT
e) the government has a DUTY to provide for the elderly and the citizen has RIGHT TO EXPECT THAT
f) the government has a DUTY to provide for the disabled and the citizen has a RIGHT TO EXPECT THAT
g) government has a right to take honestly earned money from individuals to take over the care of
the elderly, disabled and sick which have been effectively abandoned by their families, if
they even have something resembling a family.
h) government social services are administered by people who do not know the needy and who will LOSE A JOB, if the needy
become self-sufficient.
I don’t want a government for a family, I want a real family.
Instantaneous vs. Long-Term
If we are to discuss policies which should be adopted by government, we need to look at long term factors.
A common liberal technique of argument is to focus on a single point in time and bring up the plight of a suffering person. Surely, no Christian could fail to respond to the plight of a person who is acutely ill. True, we get them to the emergency room and don’t lecture them on good health habits, or good spending and saving habits.
However, contemplating the plight of a single individual who is going through a crisis at a single point in time DOES NOT A SOCIAL POLICY MAKE.
As I noted in my previous post. Our culture has elevated the individuals pursuit of personal fullfillment to the highest value and has virtually discarded the idea that fullfilling one’s role as a good spouse, good parent or good family member is paramount in life. We believe we have a right to dump our sick, elderly and disabled on the government and go on to our surfing and yoga class.
We have also virtually discarded the ideal of a saving. Americans have the lowest saving rate of any well-developed country and we are up to our necks in debt. This being the case, we are caught flat-footed when the predictable “unpredictable” happens. We simply do not save for rainy days. When a rainy day comes we are stunned and left flat footed with no way to pay our credit card bills which we incurred for our TV’s and SUV’s. At that point we have a personal crisis and ask why government isn’t there sooner to help us. Think Ray Nagin.
Easier to be the Government’s Baby
Hard to be a grown-up with all the annoying duties of caring for oneself, one’s family, deferring immediate gratification and saving money for rainy days. Easier to be government’s baby.
Cultural Left Broke Down the Family Safety Net
By breaking down sexual mores and encouraging people to pursue individual and immediate gratification first, the cultural Left has essentially broken down the family. BUT, the family was the safety net. Now we have millions without a family safety net and, of course, in the fact of this destruction, government has to step in and parent us. How nice. Hope I don’t live beyond the point of governmental inconvenience as did Terry Schiavo.
Missourian, if you wish families to administer care as they did in the 1800s, that’s great. However, you should expect to receive the same “affordable” level of medical care that was available in the 1800s. This means that you’ll be getting leeches to take care of that staph infection and a hit on the head with a hammer for your anesthesia before your “surgery”.
I’m not saying that families should not bear some of the burden of caring for their relatives. I personally left school for some time to care for my father before he passed away from cancer. But I was a student. I simply could not have been expected to scrape together the money needed to pay for hospice and the additional money for even his co-pays had he not had the insurance provisions that he had. We were lucky. Many families do not have that option.
The cost of healing and caring for the sick is simply exponentially more than it was in the 1800s. You can’t apply the same standards. I agree in substance, but realize that the best many families can do is offer their time and help. Providing $20,000-$100,000 (at minimum) for care is frequently not an option.
We are far better off than in the 1800’s
WE ARE IMMENSELY WEALTHIER
No matter how you measure income or wealth, whether you look at families or individuals, we are FAR, FAR richer than American’s of the 1800’s. Far richer.
WE ARE IMMENSELY HEALTHIER
Similarly, because of general prosperity and advances in medicine. We are far, far healthier than they were in the 1800’s. Women’s life expectancies used to be less than man’s because so many women died in childbirth, that is no longer true.
We can do more than we do.
The same technology that has enabled us to be “immensely healthier” is the same technology that has caused the costs of healthcare to skyrocket. Are we “richer”? Yes, but not proportionately enough to be able to afford the costs of staying alive and healthy beyond the life expectancy of 39 years (!!) as it was during the 1800s. The costs of healthcare have risen at a rate that far exceeds the rate at which we have increased our incomes.
Now, when your remedies for illness include “mercury, arsenic, strychnine and bleeding by leeches”, yes, the costs of healthcare will be low enough for a family to chip in and support an ill relative.
Personally, I don’t want that type of health care. Do you? If you’re arguing that only those who can afford to pay for health coverage out of pocket should be able to receive it, well, that’s fine. However, I’m not so sure how an “only the poor die young” ethos is consistent with a “culture of life”.
People access the health care system now for minor maladies that would have left people even a few decades ago scratching their heads. Medical care is expensive for reasons of simple supply and demand. Many patients today are simply brats who demand services way out of proportion to their actual needs. Couple this with expensive, sophisticated procedures and malpractice insanity and you have the American health care system.
Reports of the demise of America are indeed premature. But if it were ever to occur, a fitting epitaph would be “But We Were Entitled”.
Missourian writes: “Your language reveals your worldview. Your allegiance is to the AGENCY, the PROGRAM. My allegiance is to the goal of self-sufficiency and the end for the NEED FOR THE AGENCY or THE PROGRAM.”
I think you’re reading both too little and too much into my comments.
First, I was talking not about welfare in particular, but about ALL public agencies. Second, I was talking about having a passion for the mission of what the agency was supposed to accomplish, not a passion for the agency per se. In other words, if the mission of an agency is to have good streets, I want someone in charge of the agency who feels a sense of urgency about having good streets. If the mission of an agency is to manage disasters, I want someone who — gasp — cares about that and has experience in it. I also mentioned having programs that are well-run, efficient, and effective.
Missourian: “Over and over and over again, agencies have proved themselves INCAPABLE of efficiency, because there is no competition, no other person that can provide better services and therefore prompt the agency to improve its performance. The agency CANâ��T improve its performanc BECAUSE that would put it out of business and end all the government jobs. That cannot happen, and believe me, it wonâ��t happen.”
With all due respect, that’s wrong. The problem with public agencies is the problem with any large bureaucracy, public or private — inetia, laziness, and poor management. I’ve worked in both public and private sectors, and believe me the public agencies don’t have the market cornered on bad management. Ultimately, the main factor is leadership. Everything comes from the top down, and management is responsible for the culture and work product. If you don’t like how a public agency operates, you need to ask why they don’t have good leadership.
Missourian writes: “By breaking down sexual mores and encouraging people to pursue individual and immediate gratification first, the cultural Left has essentially broken down the family.”
Well, the social conservatives seem to be glad to partake. There are a number of web sites devoted to documenting the gambling, drinking, drug use, pedophilia, homosexuality, and general diddling of well-known conservatives. The only difference is that when conservatives are out screwing, etc., no one sees that as a feature of conservatism. The nice thing about being a conservative is that as long as you preach against the bad things you can do all the bad things and it doesn’t matter much, and nobody associates that with conservatism.
The thrice-divorced and drug-addicted Rush Limbaugh is a member in good standing in the conservative community. Ann Coulter is as far right as you can get, and her comment — “Let’s say I go out every night, I meet a guy and have sex with him. Good for me. I’m not married.” — didn’t seem to diminish her popularity with conservatives. And of course the Christians divorce at the same rate as the heathen, sometimes more, but that doesn’t matter either. And in many Red states the illegitimacy rate is higher than in the Blue states, but that doesn’t matter either.
Yup, it’s the evil liberals.
In the 19th century, per Missourian,
people who did not have families to care for them were assisted by the church or the local community
Let’s not idealize too much. My parents are in their 80s and grew up in rural northern Minnesota, in a tight-knit community of church-goers. They both remember well families of children that were packed off to different farms after their mother died, taken in not as adopted children but as cheap labor, often treated unkindly or even abusively until they were old enough to fend for themselves and move away. That was how the safety net worked, all too often.
Jim said
The nice thing about being a conservative is that as long as you preach against the bad things you can do all the bad things and it doesnât matter much, and nobody associates that with conservatism.
and then gave some examples of prominent “conservative” media figures. Why is it that these people get a pass from from many of those who snicker and sneer at Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy or John Kerry for their indiscretions? Why are they (Rush et al) considered to have any credibility when they rail about “liberal” sexual mores but don’t live any differently themselves?
Juli writes: “Why is it that these people get a pass from from many of those who snicker and sneer at Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy or John Kerry for their indiscretions? Why are they (Rush et al) considered to have any credibility when they rail about ‘liberal’ sexual mores but don’t live any differently themselves?”
You have to understand how the concept of “liberal” functions within conservative political theology. This concept is central to the conservative persecution fantasy. Liberals have destroyed the family. They are responsible for poverty. They have destroyed education. They actively persecute Christians. They killed Terri Schiavo. They lost the Vietnam war. Liberal environmentalists are responsible for the energy shortage. Liberals allowed terrorism to flourish. They are responsible for the degrading of the culture. They took God out of the schools. They took God out of the government. [How you take an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent being “out” of something is an interesting question.] They ended school prayer, and now the schools have gone to hell in a handbasket.
So no matter what good thing is going on, the liberals are there to undermine it. And wherever there is a bad thing, just kick over a nearby rock and you’ll see a liberal underneath it. When the U.S. effort in Iraq finally fails and we declare victory and leave, it will be the liberals’ fault. Whatever bad consequences follow from that will also be the liberals’ fault. How do I know this? Because the conservative persecution fantasy requires it.
You’ll notice that all of these accusations against liberals deal with things in society that most likely can’t be changed by anybody. So the strategy is to blame liberals for all this stuff, and it works great because the problem will never go away — nobody can solve it, liberal or conservative.
The conservative persecution fantasy is important because it keeps people all riled up. As I’ve mentioned before, all the conservative news programs and talk shows are not designed to inform people. They are designed to keep people in a continual state of outrage and umbrage. The liberals serve as the object of that venom.
But this is why the sins of the conservative don’t matter. This is why it doesn’t matter that many of the large media outlets producing sex and violence in TVs and movies are owned by conservatives. This is why is doesn’t matter that the main judge in the Terri Schiavo case was a Baptist, that Ann hops in and out of bed with whomever, that Rush is an addict, that Newt dumped his wife while she was a cancer patient in a hospital, that TV evangelists can’t seem to keep their zippers closed, that the adulterous Henry Hyde was banging his lover while his wife and four children were home, that Bob Barr authored the “Defense of Marriage Act,” while on his third marraige and while being photographed licking whipped cream off the breasts of a stripper at a charity event — and on and on. Nope, doesn’t matter at all.
Repeat after me, liberals are bad, liberals are bad, liberals are bad.
They get a pass because politics follows culture, not the other way around. So when Gulliani trashed his family but led New York, his aldultery was overlooked because he delivered the one thing needful during 9-11: leadership. Overlooking Clinton’s adulteries is a bit more cynical but still political: the Democrats could not afford a resignation (Clinton, if he were a man of character, would have resigned), and the hard left wing, especially feminists, would keep silent if Clinton would give them partial birth, which he did.
It’s the same with Newt Gingrich or Rush Limbaugh. They can’t make a marriage work, but they are solid political and even cultural analysts, hence the overlooking of personal failings.
(Frankly, I’m not comfortable with the public airing of private sins. First of all, people change. Many people have grave failings but sometimes overcome them. George Bush and alcohol for example. Sometimes people grow up. Everyone one of us have done stupid things that, if the behavior continued could be destructive, but once overcome is a thing of the past.)
The breakdown of social mores affects all of culture, thus it affects liberals and conservatives alike.
The ideas and rationales that promote (often agressively) this breakdown however, comes from the hard left. Gay marriage, partial birth, killing the infirm, etc. are exclusively hard left causes. Culture is a fragile entity. Ideas a powerful things. Once something that was deemed unthinkable a few short decades ago becomes accepted, they affect everyone who breathes the air of the larger culture regardless of whether they are liberal or conservative.
Look at the assault on the Boy Scouts for example. On the hand we see the left excoriating the Catholic Church and their homosexual problem (without naming it as such), and on the other excoriating the Boy Scouts for trying to avoid the same problems the Catholic Church brought on themselves.
Or look at Terri Schiavo. Who defended her killing? Cultural liberals. Yet, if killing the infirm becomes accepted as a social good (and the left argues that her killing is just that), then you will see a weakening of this social more as well and people from both sides of the aisle joining in, charges of hypocrisy notwithstanding.
The same can be said of gay marriage, polygamy, etc.
The culture wars IOW, transcends political divisions, even though politics is often the arena where the clashing moral visions crystallize.
Fr Hans wrote:
(Frankly, Iâm not comfortable with the public airing of private sins. First of all, people change. Many people have grave failings but sometimes overcome them. George Bush and alcohol for example. Sometimes people grow up. Everyone one of us have done stupid things that, if the behavior continued could be destructive, but once overcome is a thing of the past.)
That may be reasonable as a general rule – and certainly Europeans shake their heads bemusedly at us for fretting so much about our leaders’ sex lives – but it’s surely not reasonable when we’re talking about people who’ve set themselves up as public crusaders against the very moral failings with which they struggle. It’s one thing if you honestly use yourself and your failings as an example, but that’s hardly the case with the examples Jim suggests. Is it really irrelevant that someone publicly crusading to “defend” marriage is privately trashing his own? That someone publicly blaming “liberals” for a sexually immoral culture would not only privately indulge in the same sin but would go so far as to publicly brag about it? (The Ann Coulter example, which I hadn’t heard before, but which really takes the cake if it is true.)
I have no problem with the critique of ideas as opposed to people (i.e., critizing liberalism and not liberals). However, if we’re going to go ahead and criticize people for their actions, we should at least do so in an even-handed manner. I say this even though I really believe that people who uphold a higher standard of virtue in their speech towards others and fail to live up to that should be judged more harshly. After all, to NOT know the “right thing” and act accordingly is one thing. One is just being consistent. To know it and not do it is much worse, IMO.
The problem seems also to be that conservatives are always given the benefit of the doubt as to their motives and intentions while liberal thinkers are castigated for even the moral actions they do. Thus, Hillary Clinton stayed married to Bill not because of her “good values” but because she’s an “opportunist”. Anytime Bill initiated a military conflict, all of these “wag the dog” theories popped out on FOX News where they insisted he was doing so merely to deflect attention from his personal issues. Meanwhile, only the grandest and purest of motives are assigned to conservatives when they undertake the equivalent actions. Given that no one’s motives are ever going to truly be known, this doesn’t seem to be a very judicious approach towards dealing with others.
Whenever you bring morality into politics and focus on particular individuals, it gets murky. Sometimes it is justified, sometimes it is not.
Apart from this however, it is still true that the hard left generates the ideas and strategy that seeks an inversion of norms drawn from the moral tradition. It was only in the last four decades that, for example, abortion has been touted as a civil right. More recently the killing of Terri Schiavo, or the effort to create a moral parity between heterosexual marriage and homosexual unions finds its aggressive champions only on the left.
Conservatives benefit from because conservatism, by and large, recognizes the dangers of the cultural barbarism despite the moral failings of conservatives themselves. This doesn’t excuse the failings, but it still affirms the virtue that gives the charge of hypocrisy its sting — even when the hard left makes the charge. The contradiction that the hard left (not all liberals neccessarily) does not recognize is that their charges of hypocrisy draw from a tradition they no longer hold as authoritative and which many are trying to overthrow.
(If hard left morality wins the hearts and minds of the people and the culture adopts its moral darkness, hypocrisy no longer remains a credible charge. It will be replaced by concepts like “hate speech.” Tyranny of speech, and thus thought, replaces all appeal to moral virtue.)
As for “public crusaders,” I notice that the conservatives who have marriage problems are generally silent on these issues. Their failings however, don’t require silence on other issues like gay marriage, killing of the infirm, or partial birth abortion, for example. One does not have to be a saint to recognize the dangers, and sometimes the evil, inherent in these ideas.
I’d take anything you hear second-hand, like the Ann Coulter example, with a healthy dose of skepticism, BTW. It sounds more like Coulterian satire to me.
James, you frustration contains an element of truth. But as long as the Democratic party leadership is captive to the social agenda of the hard left, and implement that agenda as policy, they are complicit in the moral overthrow that the hard left wants to foment in the culture and will remain open to the charge of aiding and abetting that overthrow.
Christ reproved the people set to stone the woman caught in adultery for not recognizing that they were all under the same sentence of judgment. He did not, however, advocate that the commandment against adultery be rewritten.
As for “public crusaders,” I notice that the conservatives who have marriage problems are generally silent on these issues. Their failings however, don’t require silence on other issues like gay marriage
Surely “these issues” include the “defense of marriage” defined as opposition to same-sex marriage (civil unions, etc), rather than as opposition to divorce (adultery, pornography, etc). Being “generally silent” about divorce while at the same time blaming gay couples for degrading the sanctity of marriage, seems really dishonest to me. Why not start close to home?
Bill Clinton was a successful President because he had the political instincts to know that he could “triangulate” between the rigid and calcified positions of the hard left and hard right and the public would support him. It’s extremely frustrating to me that there are no other polticians today smart enough or brave enough to do the same.
Where is the Democrat willing to have his “Sister Souljah” moment
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Souljah_moment )
by standing up to NARAL and say that we have a moral duty to reduce the number of abortions in this country.
Where is the Republican willing to stand up to the big corporations and their lobbyist henchmen in Washington and work to protect the interests of the poor and middle-class?
Note 40. There is no doubt that gay marriage advocates get a hearing because of the weakening of traditional marriage in the culture. At the same time, a divorce shouldn’t keep someone from speaking against gay marriage, polygamy, etc.
Furthermore, gay marriage advocates aren’t really interested in replicating heterosexual marriage as much as they are removing the moral stigma against homosexual behavior. Legal parity implies moral parity.
Parents should take note that if gay marriage is legalized (most likely through judicial fiat), public schools will introduce safe-sodomy in their sex-education curriculum. Gay activists will insist on it.
Note 42. The “Sister Soulijah moment” fell flat when Clinton signed the Democratic sponsored bill legalizing partial birth abortion.
There should be a sufficient distance maintained between the Christian Faith and formal (often subjective) political designations. There are liberal aspects and conservative aspects to the Christian message. As with most things in life, context is everything.
Lloyd writes: “There are liberal aspects and conservative aspects to the Christian message. As with most things in life, context is everything.”
I think part of the problem too is that many things that are identified as “liberal” are really large-scale changes in worldview that cut across the entire political spectrum. These are changes with a general theme of increased personal autonomy, a search for personal identity, and a decreasing importance of authority.
As I’ve mentioned before, in previous centuries a person’s life and identity were basically dealt to him or her at birth. You didn’t have to choose a career because that role was either defined by your father or by your gender. You didn’t move from one social class to another. You didn’t “pick” a religious tradition, because the tradition was dictated by where you lived. The word “religion” was not even used to describe a discrete set of beliefs until something like the 17th century. Prior to that your religion was an organic part of who you were; there was no separation between what you “believed” and how you lived.
With the coming of modernity all of that has changed. Now, even people who have traditional religious beliefs often hold them in a very non-traditional way. Today religion is something that people “choose.”
Christianity itself was responsible to some extent for this change. As some have noted, in an ironic way, the more transcendent God becomes, the more the door opens for personal autonomy. In other words, if God is seen as being embodied within a certain nation or a certain king, then the life of the individual with respect to God is defined by those circumstances. But if God is utterly transcendent, then the temporal realm no longer mediates between the individual and God. Thus the religious life of the individual is not determined by anyone but the individual.
Recently there have been discussions on whether a Christian can serve in the military. As I pointed out, for the first 300 years of Christianity, military service was not supported by the church. But the significance of that went far beyond the mere issue of military service. In saying that a Christian should not serve in the military, the early church essentially accomplished a split between the individual and the society. The individual’s loyalty was no longer to a nation but to God. The early Christians were persecuted for treason because they refused to worship the gods of the empire. Again, early Christianity began to drive a wedge between the individual and the authority of society, and this made possible yet other separations between the individual and other sources of authority.
Now I’m not suggesting that Christianity is “responsible” or “morally culpable” for the coming of modernity. I’m saying that the idea of the transcendent God made possible the kind of human autonomy that made modernity possible.
Modernity is a force that no one can really resist. Conservatism tries, or at least thinks that it tries. But trying to hold back modernity is like stopping a tsunami with a bamboo fence. And at this point, we’re all creatures of modernity, like it or not, and it shapes our worldview in ways that most of us don’t even realize. And there’s no going back.
Jim, once again, you make it sound as if the Church in the first 300 years forbid military service. Since there are a number of military saints from that era, your statement implies a disapproval of the military per se that was simply not there.
Christianity did not lay the ground work for today’s indviduality only a twisting of Christian truth did. Within Christianity, human beings are individuals only because God knows us as persons. We reflect the personhood of our Creator, being created in His image and likeness. Further, within the Christian tradition, we are not autonomous, anything but, we are only individuals to the extent that we are in communion with Jesus Christ and through Him, with one another. The more we are transformed by His Grace, the more unique we become while at the same time becoming less self-directed, less isolated and separate from our brothers and sisters. Conversely, the more autonomous we become, the less unique and more isolated from others we are because we are more and more subject to the earthly and fleshly passions. The person who is most autonomous is Satan.
Yes, we are all infected by the twisted truth about individualism, materialism, and all the other modern isms, that does not mean that we should just give in and go for the ride. Salvation depends on just the opposite. In our own individual autonomy, there is no chance for success. It is only by submitting to His love in obediance as Mary did (“Let it be done unto me according to your word”) that our unique communion with God and realization of His Kingdom in community, seen and unseen, can be known.
One of the greatest mistakes of Protestant theology is to minimize the necessity for community and to substitute the personal relationship with Jesus for communion within the Body. This is essentially humanism. Within Christianty, it is through the Cross that we are united, the voluntary sacrifice of His Body and the shedding of His Blood. All are called to Him raised on the Cross to accept the voluntary sharing of one another’s burdens, rejoicing in one another’s salvation.
The humanists have taken the idea of the person in God saved in voluntary acts of kenoticism and twisted it to the false dictomy of the individual asserting rights against society. Modernity can and should be fought because it presents a radically false idea of man, society and God. It can be fought sucessfully if we do not surrender to the untruth. What is required is exactly what the Church has always taught, living a life of prayer, repentance, and service.
Such a life may be entirely apolitical, or if someone chooses to enter the public arena, it should confound any easy identification with a specific political ideology as one such would constantly reject the false dicotmies that political discourse always attempts to foist on us as truth. I’m always right, he’s always wrong, choose me.
The way of Christ and the Cross leads to freedom and life, the way of modernity to tryanny and death. Total obedience to Christ leads to total freedom in the world. Constantly asserting one’s individual autonomy leads to slavery.
Michael writes: “Jim, once again, you make it sound as if the Church in the first 300 years forbid military service.”
That’s what I’ve been able to find. I haven’t seen any positive reference to military service during that time period. As I said before, I’m ready to stand corrected, but so far I haven’t seen anything.
Michael: “Since there are a number of military saints from that era, your statement implies a disapproval of the military per se that was simply not there.”
I think they came later. There are some in the early fourth century but I haven’t seen any before that. Again, I’m happy to consider any contrary information.
Michael: “Christianity did not lay the ground work for todayâ��s indviduality only a twisting of Christian truth did.”
What I’m saying is that the transcendent God of Christianity separated God from earthly authorities, from local gods who controlled every aspect of life, from gods who regulated the seasons and made the sun rise, and from ancestor-based religion that bound everything to the very distant past. In an intellectual sense, as God was seen as increasingly transcendent, he grew distant from the earth. For example, under a transcendent God the sun is no longer a fiery charriot being driven by the god across the sky. Storms are no longer signs of God’s anger. The king is no longer a living god. And so on. The transcendent God is still knowable — no longer knowable through the operations of nature, the ruler’s will, or the nation’s laws — but knowable through individual prayer and meditation.
Now once you don’t have a god driving the fiery charriot of the sun across the sky, you can come up with different explanations that have nothing to do with God. Once the individual has direct access to God, the individual becomes to a large extent the source of his own authority. And it’s the very understanding of God as transcendent that makes all this possible.
Again, I’m not blaming Christianity. I’m just saying that Christianity set the stage for what eventually became what today we call modernity.
Michael: “One of the greatest mistakes of Protestant theology is to minimize the necessity for community and to substitute the personal relationship with Jesus for communion within the Body.”
But this is what has happened, yes? Mistake or not, it was a development that was made possible by the concept of the transcendent God to whom the individual has direct access. If you have a religion that doesn’t depend on earthly authority, it’s not a very big step to end up with a religion that doesn’t depend on ecclesiastical authority either.
Michael: “Modernity can and should be fought because it presents a radically false idea of man, society and God. It can be fought sucessfully if we do not surrender to the untruth.”
Well, I think you’re talking about closing the barn doors almost 2,000 years after the cows have gotten out. As I’ve mentioned before, even people who have traditional religious beliefs now typically come to those beliefs in a very non-traditional manner. I don’t think you could turn back the clock on modernity any more than you could convince people that a god drives the sun across the sky.
The traditional versions of Christianity are diminishing. I mean realistically, the Orthdox church in America makes up what, maybe one percent of the total number of Christians? Orthodoxy is so small that it almost doesn’t even show up on surveys. There’s always the Catholic church, but in modern countries very few Catholics look to the church as an absolute source of authority. There are larger cultural and intellectual movements at work here, even affecting how people think about religion.
“I don’t think you could turn back the clock on modernity any more than you could convince people that a god drives the sun across the sky.”
Jim,
What do you think will become of modernity? If, as you say, resistance is futile, then I suppose we all better get used to whatever happens next.
I suppose also that though I see your point and may even agree that the cultural force of modernity is far more powerful than the attempts of Christianity, conservatism or anything else to thwart it, it seems unthinkable to do anything less than fight it in any way I can. We may not win (or at least for long) and we may be deemed complete fools by those who have already lost the fight, but to lay down arms seems tantamount to spiritual death.
Individualism, science, representative government, and a host of other developments found only in Western civilization arose because of Christianity for precisely the reason you stated: Genesis places man between God and the rest of creation. Over the centuries this foundational precept among others (linear time for example) freed man to refashion and reshape the material world in ways no other civilization could even grasp.
Radical individualism however, is a relatively new development. Call it secularism where man, rather than God, is the source and touchstone of truth. It’s a logical outgrowth of a world view once informed by Christianity but subsequently desacrilized, but all heresies have a certain logic congruent with the culture in which they arose.
(It could be argued for example, that Arianism is the spiritual soil of Islam, a point affirmed by history given that Islam arose in the Arian lands. You could also argue that Calvinism is the spiritual soil of secularism, another point affirmed by history given that Western Europe is the well-spring of secularist thought.)
Secularism, by removing the Christian teaching that God is both the source and touchstone of truth, reworks the Christian moral precepts while preserving the Christian moral lexicon. Thus killing the infirm or dismembering unborn children in the womb for example, is not measured against “Thou shalt not kill”, but against such utilitarian values as convenience, cost, discomfort, etc. under the guise of serving the greater good.
If a person wants to become a Deist, which is what many Westerners have become (including many Christians), he will end up a nihilist since, as you say, God can become so transcendent that He is functionally absent. If He is absent, why bother with Him at all? This is the question the Existentialists struggled with, but the ground was tilled long before them by the Materialists. The most stark rejection was of course Nietsche, the son of a minister, who embraced nihilism to its logical and brutal end: interior disintegration and anarchy, ie: insanity. Applied externally, the same proscription holds true for culture, and we witness it all around us, particulary in the killing of the defenseless, but other ways as well.
You are correct in the conclusion that Christianity is fading in areas, but only partially so. The truth is that the center of world Christianity is shifting to the third world. Christianity has become the fastest growing religion in the world, a development not at all expected just three decades or so ago. See: The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity.
Don’t think though that if Christianity is vanquished in Western culture that life won’t be different. Europe will become Islamic (with Bosnia, thanks to American and NATO policy, as a staging area of the bloody wars that will inevitably come if Europe remains secular). “Sensitivity” will replace the distinctly Christian value of free thought, so that speech, and thus thinking, will need to conform to proscriptions decreed by the pigs who walk on two hind legs. Tyranny will replace freedom in the name of freedom. (It’s already happening in Canada where arrests and fines follow any public condemnation of the homosexual cultural agenda.)
Secularism is a modern phenomena, and the best thinkers today know it (Catholics are the best, Jews and some Protestants are close second in areas, American Orthodox thinkers in this area are unfortunately few and far between). Secularism is not grounded in the cultural or moral tradition, but is an outgrowth of much later cultural forces. It’s only a return to the deep tradition that can restore the culture and it will take a monumental effort to accomplish this, but one that already begun and has even borne fruit in places.
Note 48. Secularism has to reach a point of spiritual exhaustion. When it does, those that love death with fight tenaciously to hang on to death. Those that react with horror — who recognize that the love of death is self-annihilation — will turn back to God. This is happening in our culture to a degree already.
Read Malcolm Muggeridge: The Great Liberal Death Wish. C.S. Lewis The Great Divorce is helpful here too.